I want to say something that might cost me some social capital, but I think it needs to be said by someone on the inside.

The job market isn’t fair. And I don’t mean that in the way we usually say it—the platitude that lets us shrug and move on. I mean it structurally. Architecturally. By design, even when no one intended the design.

I’m sorry. Not in the way that absolves me. In the way that sits with it.

I’m inside. Not rich. Not powerful. But protected.

I know how to sound in the right Slack thread. I know the founder dialect—the cadence of “async,” the correct opinions about AI, the tone that signals alignment before credentials get checked. I know how to write the LinkedIn post that performs insight without risking anything. I know the aesthetic of optionality.

I learned these things. But I also absorbed them—in the right rooms, from the right people, at the right time. That absorption is a kind of inheritance. And like most inheritances, it wasn’t distributed fairly.

(In my case, it was mostly luck. Which makes it less fair, not more. But that’s a different story.)

I see hundreds of thousands of applications disappear into ATS systems designed to say no efficiently. I see referrals with no teeth—offered generously, forgotten immediately. I see people sharper than me get ghosted by companies that would be lucky to have them.

I’ve watched the rejection emails pile up for people who did everything right—me included in the past. Those who’ve followed the advice. Who tailored the resume, optimized the keywords, practiced the STAR method until they could tell their own stories like strangers.

It wasn’t enough. It’s often not enough.

When we talk about elites, we picture billionaires. The Musks and the Trumps. The loud money.

But there’s another class. Quieter. More insidious because it doesn’t see itself as a class at all.

The ones who decide what “culture fit” means and then pretend it’s objective. The ones who write job descriptions requiring five years of experience for entry-level roles, who demand “passion” but offer no stability in return. The ones who ask for a “quick trial project”—unpaid, of course—and then go silent.

This class doesn’t guard its gates with money. It guards them with language. With taste. With the unspoken fluency that lets you know who belongs before anyone checks a resume.

I’m part of this class now. I didn’t storm the gates. I learned the passwords.

Here’s where I have to be honest with myself—and with you.

It would be easy to write a piece like this and have it become its own form of gatekeeping. The thoughtful insider who names the system, gets praised for naming it, and changes nothing. Self-awareness as aesthetic. Critique as credential.

That’s also a protected class. Maybe the most protected, because it gets to feel righteous while staying safe.

So the question I have to ask myself: what does it cost me to say this?

If the answer is nothing, then this is just content.

Here’s what it costs.

There’s someone I believed in. Smart, raw, full of promise. I gave them advice, a little coaching, even a referral.

But I didn’t push.

Didn’t follow up. Didn’t say their name in the room with the same conviction I felt in private. Because I wasn’t sure how to vouch for someone who didn’t know the dialect. Because I’d just gotten inside, and I was afraid of looking like I didn’t belong either.

I told myself it was neutral. Just one of those things.

But it wasn’t neutral. It was self-protection. The same kind I say I’m trying to dismantle.

When I was outside—before anyone said yes, before I learned the passwords—I made a promise to myself.

I said: if you ever get in, you hold the door differently. You don’t just refer people and hope for the best. You teach. You give real projects with real accountability. You’re honest about what you control and what you don’t. You don’t pretend the game is fair, but you play it like someone is watching who needs to see it can be played with integrity.

That was young Briggs talking. Naive, maybe. But he was right.

I’m keeping that promise now. I am currently mentoring two people outside my company. Not casually—with actual projects, actual deadlines, actual feedback. Work that builds their portfolio whether or not a job materializes. The way a few professors did for me when I had nothing to offer in return except the possibility that I might become someone who could pay it forward.

I’m liberal with this practice while I still can be. Because I know the window isn’t permanent. Leverage comes and goes. The ability to take risks with your social capital is itself a privilege that can be revoked.

So I’m using it now. Because now is what I have.

But I’d be lying if I said my motives were clean.

I think about that person I didn’t push for. I think about them when I send a message to one of the people I’m helping now.

And I wonder: Am I helping because I believe in them? Or because I need to believe in myself?

I don’t know.

Maybe it’s both. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe motives don’t have to be pure to matter.

Or maybe that’s just something people on the inside tell themselves so they can sleep.

I’m not saying burn it down. I’m not saying everyone inside is complicit and everyone outside is virtuous.

I’m saying: stop pretending we’re all playing the same game.

Some of us started on third base and learned to call it a triple. Some of us got lucky with timing, with connections, with the accident of standing in the right hallway. Some of us have safety nets that let us take risks that look like courage but are actually just cushioned bets.

And some of us applied five hundred times, did everything right, and got silence.

I can be grateful for what I have and grieved by what I see. I can benefit from the system and refuse to pretend it’s merit all the way down.

If you’re inside—if you have the passwords, the fluency, the protection—I’m not asking you to tear anything down.

I’m asking you to stop mythologizing it.

Stop telling people the market rewards the best candidates. It rewards the legible ones. The ones who fit the pattern. The ones who sound right.

Stop pretending referrals are generous when you send them into the void with no follow-up, no advocacy, no skin in the game.

And if you can—if you have the leverage, even temporarily—hold the door like you remember what it was like to stand outside it.

Give the project. Make the introduction that costs you something. Be honest about what you can and can’t control.

I can’t fix the job market. I can’t make the doors open wider than my arms reach.

But I made a promise to a version of myself who didn’t know if he’d ever get inside. He said: if you make it, you play it differently. You don’t just name the problem. You act like someone’s watching who needs to see it’s possible.

I’m keeping that promise. The motives are mixed. The math doesn’t add up to redemption.

But I’m doing it anyway, while I still can.